Warren Murphy - Father to Son

Eyes widening in surprise, the old Korean pressed a wrinkled hand to the wall. It felt solid to his touch. He could feel the rough surface of the charred wood. But it seemed too perfect, felt too much like a burned house. Just like the smell of smoke that still lingered in the cold air. All too real. He was ashamed to not have noticed it before. Experience should have made him suspicious. In the past he had been tricked several times by Jeremiah Purcell's more-real-than-real illusions.

"The Dutchman," Chiun snarled, his hand hopping from the false wall.

"He's here," Smith insisted. "That's why we came. To warn you. Mark says-"

"Enough!" Chiun snapped impatiently, cutting Smith off. "What day is this?"

Smith was surprised by the question. The Master of Sinanju kept time better than an atomic clock. "It's Friday," Smith replied.

"Three days," Chiun said to himself. To Smith he asked sharply, "Where is Remo?"

"We don't know," the CURE director replied. "He never returned from Russia. I believe he may have resumed the Time of Succession schedule. I have gotten a few odd reports from some countries in the Middle East. But he has not gotten in touch with me in days. You haven't spoken with him?"

Chiun shook his head. "No," he said, his nose turned into the air like a bloodhound on a scent. "But he is near."

Howard and Smith exchanged glances. Smith seemed to easily accept the old man's words. Mark was going to ask how Chiun could possibly know Remo was nearby, but then he remembered he was standing in the middle of a madman's three-dimensional delusion that had been conjured out of thin air. He decided that anything was possible.

"He has preceded the tanks here," Chiun commented.

"Tanks?" Smith asked.

Chiun didn't elaborate. "Emperor, take your prince and flee this place," the old man warned gravely. "In the coming battle I cannot guarantee your safety."

"We cannot go," Smith insisted. "You don't understand."

"Then stay," Chiun snapped impatiently. "But the risk is yours."

Turning on his heel, the Master of Sinanju hurried through the village square. Brow sinking in frustration, Smith raced to catch up.

"Wait, Master Chiun," Smith called.

Up ahead the Master of Sinanju was still not immune to the illusions. His kimono skirts were hiked up as he darted over and around seemingly solid bodies.

Only Mark Howard was able to see reality beyond the illusion. On some level he realized that it was due to the psychic connection he'd had with the Dutchman more than a year before. Somehow the mind tricks didn't work on him. Rather than go around, the assistant CURE director waded straight through the bodies, feet vanishing ankle deep in torsos before drifting ghostlike out the far side.

"Some of these faces aren't Korean," Howard commented as they hurried through the heart of the village.

Smith had noticed the same thing. The farther along they went, the more non-Korean faces there were.

"I believe they are his victims," Smith commented tightly. "I- My God," he gasped, stopping dead. Three of the corpses that had been conjured from the depths of the Dutchman's twisted mind wore faces familiar to the CURE director. Three United States senators who had been murdered thirty years before were lying with the rest.

Smith was shocked silent. The murders of the men had been tangled up in the first assignment he had ever sent Remo on as CURE's enforcement arm. Smith had no idea that they had somehow been connected to Jeremiah Purcell.

"He couldn't have been more than a boy when these murders took place," Smith whispered.

He looked back over his shoulder, across the sea of faces. There seemed more now. Bodies as far as the eye could see. As Smith watched, more bodies grew atop the piles. Mountains of corpses rising up, pasty death faces illuminated in the weird purple light of the growing dawn.

"What's wrong, Dr. Smith?" Howard asked. "His mind is unraveling. He is remembering all of his victims. All the faces of the dead that have been tormenting him throughout the years."

When he turned, he saw that a new pair of bodies had been set at the very end of the line.

The man and woman were both in their late thirties. The man was dressed in simple blue jeans and plaid work shirt. The woman wore a blue apron and a worn but clean dress. She had blond hair like spun silk. The skin of both husband and wife was blistered black from third-degree burns.

"Who are they?" Mark asked.

"I would guess Purcell's parents," the CURE director replied, his thin lips pursed. "He told Remo and Chiun years ago that he had murdered them. They were his first victims. I believe we have come to the end of the line."

His worried eyes were directed ahead.

The main road ended where the long walkway to Chiun's house began. The area was free of phantom corpses. Smith saw that a familiar figure had joined the Master of Sinanju on the well-trampled footpath.

For the first instant that he saw Remo, the CURE director felt a flash of quick relief. That relief disappeared as quickly as it had come.

It was Chiun's reaction that sent up warning flares for Harold Smith.

The old Korean gave a deep, subservient bow, the likes of which Masters of Sinanju granted no mere mortals. Eyes downcast, he shuffled a few obsequious steps backward.

Howard stopped at Smith's side. "It's Remo," he said.

Smith shot a hard look at Mark Howard. "If you value both our lives, do not say anything to him." Howard shook his head as he studied the new arrival. There wasn't the same flickering lack of substance he had seen in the buildings and bodies.

"Don't worry, Dr. Smith. That's really Remo." The CURE director was studying the Master of Sinanju.

The old man's face was now upturned, but he maintained a subservient semibow. Remo had taken a posture of arrogance, hands planted on his hips, as he looked up at the House of Many Woods. He seemed to be soaking up his teacher's groveling as if it were his due.

Smith shook his head ominously.

"He is real," the CURE director said darkly. When he glanced at his assistant, the dread was reflected deep in his gray eyes. "But I fear he is not Remo."

Chapter 33

The Master of Sinanju knew to fear the instant he saw Remo's eyes. Within the dark depths of the deep-set brown orbs were twin pinpricks of red-ancient burning coals compressed into a tiny supernova of raw power and fury.

Chiun had seen those eyes before. They were not the eyes of his beloved son, but of a force far greater than any mere mortal. Even a Master of Sinanju.

His bow was deep and reverential.

"O Supreme Lord, your humble servant welcomes you joyously to this temporal plain."

And though his words were respectful, they were laced with fear for the world and sadness for the son who had to die to bring this terrible force to life.

Remo didn't answer right away. He didn't look at Chiun. His eyes remained directed on the house up ahead, the senses of his perfect body tuned to the life force that emanated from within. And when he spoke, there was a quizzical growl to the booming voice that rose like accusing thunder from deep within Remo's chest.

"I know this place. "

Chiun allowed a glimmer of hope. "It is the ancestral home of the Masters of Sinanju."

This seemed to strike a chord within Remo. He looked away from the house. His glowing eyes studied Chiun's face.

"I have encountered you before, old man. "

"You honor me to remember such a worthless soul as I."

The Dutchman's sunrise had oozed up over the horizon. Purple light spread like an oil slick across the dreary landscape. The light brightened across Remo's battered form.

It looked as if Remo had been dragged through Hell. His clothes were tatters, his hair filthy and unkempt. But it was the condition of his pupil's skin that made Chiun wince.